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Nokia's 2012 report shows sign of recovery

HELSINKI, Jan 24, 2013 (Xinhua via COMTEX) --
After being beleaguered for over
one and a half years, Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia took
on a positive look at the turn of the year, according to the
annual report released by the company on Thursday.

In the last quarter of 2012, Nokia gained 439 million euros
(584 million U.S. dollars) of operating profits. In the same
period of 2011, the company reported an operating loss of 954
million euros.

The report said that the operating profitability was "boosted
by profits from NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks). Nokia's net cash
position was strengthened by nearly 800 million euros, of which
650 million euros were generated by NSN."
According to Timo Seppala, a researcher from the Research
Institute of the Finnish Economy, NSN's success was mainly based
on the structural changes in organization and products portfolio.

But "it is still too early to make predict for the longer-term
development," Seppala added.

Nokia's net sales of devices continued to decline in 2012 at
year-on-year level by 34 percent. However, at quarter-on-quarter
level, Nokia's net sale of smart devices increased by 26 percent
and mobile phones by 4 percent in Q4 of 2012, showing a sign of
positive trend.

Nevertheless, according to news released by Finnish
broadcasting company Yle, in 2012, Nokia's net sales of Smart
phone was 6.6 million units, still far behind Apple's 47 million
and Samsung's 55 million.

Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop appeared satisfied with the company's
performance.

"We are very encouraged that our team's execution against our
business strategy has started to translate into financial results.

Most notably we are pleased that Nokia Group reached underlying
operating profitability in the fourth quarter and for the full
year 2012," he commented.

He attributed the success to the measures to strengthen
financial position, improve underlying operating margin in Devices
& Services, introduce the HERE brand to expand the mapping and
location experiences, and drive record profitability in Nokia
Siemens Networks.

Nokia, a global leader in communication technologies, used to
be a dominator in the international mobile phone market.

Challenged by rivals like Apple and Samsung, it has fallen into a
difficult situation since 2009.

The company started strategic transformation in the beginning
of 2011 by building up cooperation with Microsoft and producing
Windows-based smart phones. In the end of 2011, Nokia started to
launch its series of Lumia smart phone, which sold pretty well in
the high-end market.